Musings of an antipodean contrarian

education

A School Chaplain is a safe person for young people to connect with at school, providing a listening ear, a caring presence, and a message of hope. They care for students struggling with a wide range of issues, including family problems, confusing relationships, friendship issues, peer pressure, self-esteem issues, bullying, […]

On Monday Australia’s High Court ruled that the federal government’s direct funding model for the National School Chaplaincy Program is constitutionally invalid. But the court also found that government funding of chaplaincy does not breach the principle of church-state separation, and other funding models are possible. The Howard Government introduced […]

On Thursday I attended an event at the NSW Parliament to celebrate the success of Special Religious Education in NSW state schools, recognise the 40th anniversary of the Inter-Church Commission on Religious Education in Schools, and congratulate a number of veteran SRE teachers, including the longest serving Scripture teacher who […]

The NSW Government is conducting an inquiry into the proposed repeal of legislation to allow ethics classes to be taught in state schools. The NSW Council of Churches has called for significant legislative reforms including an independent review of the controversial classes with a report to Parliament before the date […]

Who’d have thought that the divine command in Genesis 1:28 for our first parents to “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the Earth” would lead, in 2011, to seven billion people all alive at the same time on Planet Earth? But that’s what happened on Monday October 31, when baby […]